Ian Sansom - The Case of the Missing Books

'Was he blind since birth?' asked Israel, as they piled the books into the van.

'No. He was caught in a bomb blast, up in Belfast.'

'That's terrible.'

'Yeah, it was. His wife died.'

'God.'

'Don't take the Lord's name in vain.'

'Sorry.'

'Thank you. Now you get in the back there,' said Ted, pointing to the dark interior of the van.

'What?'

'To count the books.'

'Oh.'

Israel counted, all the way back to Tumdrum, and with some allowance for bumps in the road he made a total of 284 books and 75 audio books.

'Well?' said Ted, as they pulled up outside Tumdrum Library.

'What's seventy-five plus two hundred and eighty-four?' said Israel. 'Three hundred and fifty-nine?'

'I don't know.'

'Anyway, so what's fifteen thousand take away three hundred and fifty-nine?'

'Ach, Israel,' said Ted, 'my mental arithmetic's not what it was.'

'Fourteen thousand, six hundred and forty-one?'

'Sounds about right,' said Ted.

'So that's it: we've got approximately fourteen thousand, six hundred and forty-one books left to find.'

'Not bad then.'

'That's terrible,' said Israel. 'It'll take us years.'

'You know what they say?' said Ted.

'No.'

'Patience and perseverance would take a snail to Jerusalem.'

'What?'

'We'll have this all rightened out before Christmas.'

'Hanukkah.'

'Bless you.'

They were on the road together for the best part of a week, Ted and Israel, starting off from Tumdrum around eight every morning and not getting back until much before seven, day in, day out, rounding up books from outlying farms, and from schools and hospices, and old people's homes, and big houses and flats, and a few places down almost as far as Ballymena and up almost to Coleraine, past the Giant's Causeway, and the strain was beginning to tell. Israel had drunk enough tea to drown himself and eaten enough wee buns to weigh him down while he was drowning, and everyone they met and everywhere they went was slowly becoming a murky blur, a giant milky-tea-and-biscuit-tray of Achesons and Agnews and Begleys and Buchanans, all handing back their Jilly Coopers and their Catherine Cooksons and talking so fast and in accents so impenetrable that Israel just nodded, sipped tea and ate more buns, and let Ted do all the talking. A few faces and a few places stood out: he remembered the ancient and improbable vegetarian Mrs Roulston, for example, who'd done them a nice vegetable stew for lunch one day, and who lived all by herself in a painfully neat flat above her son's butcher's shop somewhere down near Ballygodknowswhere, and who had somehow ended up with all sixty-one volumes of the library's collected St Aquinas, which she'd been working through and testing by the yardstick of the Holy Bible and her own strong Presbyterian faith; and it turned out that he had the wrong end of the stick, apparently, Aquinas. Israel also remembered a Mr H. R. Whoriskey, a big fleshy man with Brylcreemed hair, who had the library's complete set of 1970s lavishly illustrated volumes on amateur photography, featuring bikini-clad beauties and women with perms in see-through blouses, and a disturbing number of books about Hitler and the Third Reich. Also, he had dogs.

Ted and Israel had rounded up audio books, and tape cassettes, and fiction and non-fiction, and children's books, and reference works that should never have left the library in the first place, and they had a haul so big now it could have filled at least a few shelves in the mobile library, although, as it was, they were in carrier bags in the back of the van.

'What's the tally, Mr Tallyman?' asked Ted.

'Erm.' Israel consulted the tally book while Ted started singing.

'Come, Mr Tallyman, tally me bananas!'

'Ted! Ted!'

'What?'

'You're giving me a headache, Ted.'

'Aye. Right. Well. And the vice versa.'

'Anyway, the total for this week,' announced Israel wearily, reading from the tally book. 'Is four hundred and thirty-seven books, comprising fiction, non-fiction and children's titles; one hundred and twenty-two audio books; forty-two tape cassettes; five CD-ROMs; fourteen videos; an unbound set of last year's National Geographic magazine, and the Sopranos first series on DVD. God.'

'Aye, right, mind your language,' said Ted. 'How many's that leave us?'

'Erm. Hang on. Let me work it out.' Israel took a Biro and had a quick go at the sums.

'Come, Mr Tallyman…'

'Ted!'

'What?'

'Nothing. I think we're still missing about fourteen thousand.'

'It's a start,' said Ted.

'Yeah, well. It's only a start. There's only so many overdue books out there, Ted. We're never going to get them all back like this.'

'Ach, your glass always half empty, is it?'

'Yes, it is actually.'

'Then you need to learn to graze where you're tethered, but.'

'What?'

'It's a saying.'

'Right. Meaning?'

'We're doing what we can, and we're doing it methodo…'

'Methodically.'

'That's it.'

'It's not getting us very far, though, is it?'

'Ach, will you give over moaning? It's like throwing water over a dog.'

'What?'

'It's just a-'

'Saying, right. Well I'm just saying we're never going to get them all back like this. You know that and I know that. Someone's stolen the books. We need to find out who.'

'Aye, aye, right, but it's the weekend now, so you'll have to get back to your mysteryfying on Monday, Inspector Clouseau.'

'But-'

Ted turned up a lane.

'We just need to take a wee skite in here,' said Ted, ignoring Israel, as usual, 'see Dennis about the shelves, get her measured up, and then I'm away home. Friday's my night with the BB.'

'The who B?'

'Boys' Brigade.'

'Right. Sorry, I have absolutely no idea what that is, Ted-what is it, like an army or something?'

'Ach, where are you from, boy? It's like the Scouts, but, except more…'

'What? Gay?'

'Protestant.'

'Jesus.'

'Israel!'

'Sorry, Ted.'

'So anyway, you'll be doing the last call yerself. It's up by the Devines' there-if I drop you off you can walk down the wee rodden when you're done, sure. Bring you out by the big red barn.'

'Which big red barn?'

There were quite a lot to choose from round and about.

'The Devines' big red barn. "Awake To Righteousness Not Sin".'

'Oh, right, that big red barn, yes.'

Israel had quickly become accustomed to seeing walls and barns and signs painted with light-hearted biblical texts and evangelical appeals, which he'd found shocking at first, the reminder that 'Brief Life Here Is Our Portion', or that 'And After This, The Judgement', but you can get used to anything, it seems. He now found something of a comfort in the thought that all this was temporary.

'Yeah, that's fine,' said Israel, who had also become accustomed to agreeing eventually to whatever Ted suggested.

'Good. Dennis's first then.'

They drove up the long lane to a tall red-brick building, taller than it was wide, and which must have commanded fantastic views from the top.

'What's this place?' said Israel.

'Dennis's? It's the old water tower.'

'It's amazing.'

'It's an old water tower.'

'Towers are very important, you know, to the Irish imagination. I read a book once-'

'Ah'm sure. Well, I'll tell you what's important to this Irish imagination. Getting these shelves sorted and getting home for my tea.'

Ted pulled up the van and honked the horn.

A man appeared at an upper window of the tower.

'Dennis,' shouted Ted, getting out of the van.

'Ted,' shouted the man at the window, who was bearded, and probably about the same age as Israel and probably half his weight. He reappeared at the bottom of the tower a few minutes later.